The Mumbai Police’s massive crackdown on the matka dens forced dealers to shift their hideouts to the city’s outskirts.

The decades of 1980s and 1990s saw the matka business reach its peak. Kalyanji Bhagat's matka ran every day of the week, whereas Ratan Khatri's matka ran only five days a week, from Monday to Friday and later as it gained immense popularity and became synonymous with his name, it began to be called Main Ratan matka.ĭuring the flourishing of textile mills in Mumbai, many mill workers played matka, resulting in bookies opening their shops in and around the mill areas, predominantly located in Parel in Central Mumbai and Kalbadevi in South Mumbai. Ratan Khatri then introduced the New Worli matka in 1964, with slight modifications to the rules of the game with odds that were more favourable to the public. In 1962, Kalyanji Bhagat started the Worli matka.

Over the years, the practice changed, so that three numbers were drawn from a pack of playing cards, but the name 'matka' was kept. One person would then draw a chit and declare the winning numbers. Numbers would be written on pieces of paper and put into a matka, a large earthen pitcher. A Sindhi migrant from Karachi, Pakistan, Ratan Khatri introduced the idea of declaring opening and closing rates of imaginary products and playing cards. In 1961, the New York Cotton Exchange stopped the practice, which caused the punters to look for alternative ways to keep the matka business alive. In the original form of the game, betting would take place on the opening and closing rates of cotton as transmitted to the Bombay Cotton Exchange from the New York Cotton Exchange, via teleprinters. Whoever is caught playing the game will be punished. In the 1960s, the system was replaced with other ways of generating random numbers, including pulling slips from a large earthenware pot known as a matka, or dealing with playing cards.Īs per the Public Gambling Act, 1867 both betting establishments and satta matka houses were outlawed completely. It originates from before the era of Indian independence when it was known as Ankada Jugar ('figures gambling').

Matka gambling or satta is a form of betting and lottery which originally involved betting on the opening and closing rates of cotton transmitted from the New York Cotton Exchange to the Bombay Cotton Exchange.

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